First Day at the office

The day started very early as my internal clock has not totally converted to the local time. I was awake at about 5 am but I was not due into the office until 10 am - the normal start time at the office. I ate breakfast in the hotel (while listening to torture tunes) and had time to speak to the family.

Family Talk Plan
I bought a Logitech microphone/headset ($40) from Best Buy before I left St. Louis and I have been using Skype to talk to my family over the net. This has worked out very well. First of all, it is free - no long distance charges as long as both parties have Skype software and internet access. Second, the sound quality is better than the telephone. We have had a few tech support challenges at home but we are learning to deal with those together. ;-)
I was picked up at 10 am sharp and we drove to the office. I saw a little more of the city but the office is very close to the hotel. I saw many more people today but it is not nearly as crowded as I expected. It is very similar to NYC but there is much less order (people and cars share the roads and don't seem to have any regard for the concept of “lanes”).

The office is small and modest. Though the decor is much more plain it reminded me of our days down on the landing (except they have a larger conference room). The office is air conditioned with several large room air conditioning units. These seem to do an adequate job but no one will ever be cold here.

After spending the morning getting acquainted and discussing the solution at a high level I went out to lunch. We had lunch at a restaurant in a “Western Hotel” around the corner from the office (we started to drive but traffic was bad so we got out and walked). The city streets are lined with shops not unlike the shopping district of a western city... all of the signs are even in English. There are also many street vendors selling food items, polishing shoes, etc. It was surprising how many people were on the streets with someplace to go. There are obviously many businesses where all of these people work. This seems strange only because the outward appearance to a westerner is that the city is impoverished and depressed.

After lunch, we returned to the office and I met for several hours with the team here demonstrating our solutions, what the software does and how the business works. The team seemed to quickly grasp the business concepts and, not surprising, knew more about the technical implementation that I do. I left the office early today, about 6:30 pm - they normally work until about 9 or 10 pm so they can interface with people in the US.

Tonight I am working to adjust my internal clock further so that I will fell stronger tomorrow.